


A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:11:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AS virtuous men pass mildly away,<br/>And whisper to their souls to go,<br/>Whilst some of their sad friends do say,<br/>"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

**Author's Note:**

> The title and summary (and a great deal of the imagery) are taken from John Donne's poem.

There are a hundred things that Harry wants. A hundred things left undone and unsaid, a hundred things – Harry never had a chance.  
  
He tastes ashes, thick and bitter in his mouth. There had been no pyre, no farewell. The body had been gone. He'd never had a chance to say goodbye to Snape.  
  
Squaring his shoulders, Harry steps up to the podium, brushing his way through the lilies and vines looped with asphodel and nightshade, tribute to a Potions Master.  
  
There are a hundred things Harry wants to say, but he says nothing. He lets the silence speak.  
  
\-----  
  
The lilies wilt and bend and move, and Harry bows his head. Nothing smells sweeter than dying flowers.  
  
There's no separation between petals until they droop and begin to fall. Harry picks one, twists it between his fingers until the sick-sweet smell of the dying flower is too much.  
  
He'd never – it doesn't matter now. The breath is gone, the body gone, the soul gone – Snape is gone, and there's an end to it. Anything that Harry had wanted to say is gone.  
  
He lets the lily drop onto the headstone and leaves it there. The smell will linger and disappear.  
  
\-----  
  
Harry hears it first – Snape's voice, nothing more than a whisper. He dismisses it as dreams, washes it away with whiskey, but nothing will make it go.  
  
He's haunted.  
  
Two souls together until they fuse – two metals melded and joined – there's no line between love and hate, no line between savior and saved, and Harry is there in the joining. He's there with Snape, though Snape is gone.  
  
The voice stays with Harry. It has none of the timbre of Snape's voice, none of that velvet strength, but it is Snape's voice all the same. Harry would know it anywhere.  
  
\-----  
  
When Harry sees Snape, he doesn't believe. Shadows and fancies, a trick of moonlight, a brush with death – Snape steps out of the shadows and saves him.  
  
There are no words, no numbers to reckon the times that Snape has saved him. Snape has a mark on his arm – Harry has a mark on his life. He owes it to Snape.  
  
No ghost could have blocked that spell. No trick of the light could have stopped his death. Snape is there, real and waiting for Harry.  
  
The night stretches out between them, and Harry takes a step forward. He believes.  
  
\-----  
  
Harry ends where Snape touches him, and it's as though the touch has brought him to life. The night draws close around them, thin and airy and cold.  
  
Harry reaches to touch Snape, his fingers snagging on the rough wool of Snape's coat. It pricks his skin, and he looks up at Snape.  
  
Snape's chest rises and falls, and there's his heart beating there, under Harry's fingers. They've never been separated, not truly – Harry feels at home with him, safe.  
  
He reaches up to kiss Snape, and in the end, they come together like twin compasses, clicking together like magnets.


End file.
